Interesting comments about Mark. I agree that I think he likes to distance himself from the lyrics by "portraying characters" and historical events. It often works very well and Mark is a bit of a master at it (as you guys already pointed out). But some of you hate Terminal of Tribute to? That surprised me, I think it's one of his better recent ones
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BTW, in my feeble attempts at understanding his lyrics, it seems that he sometimes has taken an emotional and "naked" approach as a lyricist. Love over gold and It never rains sound like very personal songs to me, and I happen to think they are probably his best songs. Maybe Why worry as well? I'm sure there are more but these are the ones that popped into my head right now.
Come to think of it, A place where we used to live could mean something to him personally, even if it maybe feels a bit like a general description of a broken relationship. But that could probably be said to almost all of his songs, except for purely historical songs like Sailing to Philadelphia and so on?